Word: speakers
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...both), has developed a remarkable system of self-government, comprised of hard rules and of a hard breed of men who, however else they may differ, live by their rules. The five top leaders of the House have only one thing in common. They can all say with Speaker Sam Rayburn: "I love this House. It is my life." Through the Big Five, both in their personalities and their positions, the House can best be understood...
TEXAS' SAM RAYBURN, 77, the 44th Speaker of the House, has held his office 14 years, far longer than any other man (Henry Clay, elected Speaker his first day, served ten years). Eighth of eleven children of a Confederate cavalryman, Rayburn comes from tough, Bible-reading ("Every bit of wisdom is written somewhere in that book") people, who scratched a living from 40 sun-baked acres of cotton at Bonham, Texas. Folks such as his family, he thinks, are the "real people," and his feeling for them forms the basis of his political liberalism. Since 1913 Rayburn has represented Texas...
...Five. Historically speaking, the practical balance of powers among the five House rulers is explained by the fact that their jobs were once held by two men. For many years the Speaker was also chairman of the Rules Committee, and the chairman of Ways & Means (which handled appropriations along with tax bills). The majority leader was the other major figure -and he was generally the creature of the Speaker. This meant in effect that one man held all the reins of power...
MASSACHUSETTS' JOHN MCCORMACK, 67, was elected Democratic floor leader the same month -September, 1940 -that Mister Sam became Speaker (during the two Republican Congresses since then, Rayburn became floor leader, McCormack Democratic whip). Boston-born John McCormack, a cigar-munching teetotaler, was left fatherless at 13, shined shoes, ran errands, earned his way through night law school, was elected to the House in 1928. He is a hard-knuckled politician from one of the hardest knuckled of all political schools: Massachusetts' Twelfth Congressional District. More than half Irish, the Twelfth takes in ten dingy, crowded...
...late Kenneth McKellar, once threatened to gavel Cannon's head during a conference committee hearing. But he is also the House's hardest-working member (roughly, from 10 a.m. to midnight seven days a week) and one of its ablest. Brought to Washington in 1911 as aide to Speaker Champ Clark, Lawyer Cannon became parliamentarian, began compiling his monumental Procedure and Precedents, by which the House still does business. In 1922 Cannon was elected to the House from Speaker Clark's old district, Missouri's Ninth ("The Bloody Ninth"), which sprawls across 24 northeastern counties and includes Mark Twain...